CableLabs® Winter Conference 2002 Sets Attendance Record

The 13th annual CableLabs® Winter Conference ran February 11-13, 2002 in Westminster, Colorado, gaining about a 30% increase in attendance over recent years to a total of about 400 people. The conference also featured 25 demonstrations of new technologies and of implementations of work done by CableLabs projects.

Kicking off the conference was a general session on Wall Street and its views of cable and the competition. Gary Lauder, Managing Partner of Lauder Partners, moderated the session that featured Rich Bilotti, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley; Niraj Gupta, Managing Director, Salomon Smith Barney; and Tom Wolzien, Senior Media Analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein.

The conference broke into business and technical tracks following the general session. The business track session was PacketCable™: Dollars and Sense and had CableLabs PacketCable Director Glenn Russell as moderator. Speakers were Bilotti, Ray Katz, Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns; and Dr. Jiong Gong, Senior Advisor, Strategic Assessment.

The concurrent technical track focused on Video over Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) or Internet Protocol (IP). Ralph Brown, CableLabs Chief Software Architect, moderated a panel of Burcak Beser, Chief Architect at Juniper Networks, Rich Prodan, Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist of Terayon Communication Systems, and Ran Oz, CTO and Co-Founder of BroadBand Networks.

The business track through the remainder of the conference’s first day flowed with The Great Privacy Debate session moderated by CableLabs Assistant General Counsel Jud Cary. Speakers: Leslie Spasser, Senior Counsel, Cox Communications Inc.; Frank Sandoval, Senior Software Architect, Advanced Platforms and Services Department at CableLabs; Jeffrey Sinsheimer, Vice President Law and Public Policy at California Cable & Telecommunications Association; and Matthew Zinn, Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Policy Officer, Tivo, Inc.

Technology Analyst Leslie Ellis (far right) moderated the CTOs: A Perspective of the Future panel with (from left) David Fellows, Chief Technology Officer, AT&T Broadband; Charlie Dietz, Chief Technology Officer, Insight Communications; and Dermot O’Carroll, Senior Vice President, Network Engineering and Operations, Rogers Cable, Inc.

The final business track session of the day was on OpenCable™ Application Platform (OCAP™) with moderator Mark Hess, Vice President of Digital Television, Comcast Corporation. Speakers included: John Callahan of Time Warner Cable; Lynne Elander, Vice President of Video Product Management at Cox Communications, Inc.; and Karl Ossentjuk, Vice President of New Product Development at AT&T Broadband.

On the technical track was a session on Tiered Data Services with some real-world experiences. Moderator was Terry Shaw, Director of Network Systems in the Strategic Planning Department of CableLabs. Speakers were: John Fountain, Director, Broadband Engineering, Cox Communications, Inc.; Gary Lauder and Rodger Woock, Director, Management Science Applications, AT&T Broadband.

A session on DOCSIS™ enabling home networking concluded the day. Moderator was Doug Jones, Chief Architect, YAS Broadband Ventures LLC. Speakers included: Mark Francisco, Director Engineering Home Services, Comcast New Media Development; George Hart, Director Technology Integration, Rogers Cable Inc.; and Richard Hertz of AT&T Broadband.

Day two of the conference on the business track started with a session on Home Networking Services Prospects, moderated by CableLabs Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning Dr. David P. Reed. Speakers were: Richard Hertz, Vice President, AT&T Broadband Labs; Jeff Henry, Vice President, Retail Product Development, Time Warner Cable; and Mario Vecchi, Vice President, AOL Consumer Electronics Product Development, America Online.

A group of CableLabs Winter Conference 2002 attendees listens to a technical track panel discussion.

The technical track featured a session on Advanced Set-top Boxes, Beyond The Press Releases and was moderated by Don Dulchinos, Vice President, Advanced Platforms & Services, CableLabs. Speakers included: Mike Hayashi, Senior Vice President, Subscriber Technologies and Advanced Engineering, Time Warner Cable; and Jim Henderson, Vice President Corporate Development and Technology, Charter Communications.

A general session followed on Video, Voice and Data Going Global, moderated by Rouzbeh Yassini, Executive Consultant to CableLabs in charge of Broadband Access as well as founder and CEO of YAS Broadband Ventures LLC. Speakers included: Tony Werner, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Liberty Media; Marilyn Humphrey, Senior Vice President, Callahan Associates International; and Phil Colby, Regional Vice President, Telephony Engineering, UnitedGlobalCom.

The morning concluded with another general session, this one entitled CTOs: A Perspective of the Future. Leslie Ellis, industry technology analyst, moderated. Speakers included: David Fellows, Chief Technology Officer of AT&T Broadband; Dermot O’Carroll, Senior Vice President Network Engineering and Operations, Rogers Cable Inc.; and Charles Dietz, Chief Technology Officer, Insight Communications.

After lunch the conference broke into three concurrent sessions:

1. Digital Ad Insertion: What’s Next, moderated by Paul Woidke, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Adlink Cable Advertising. Speakers were: Matthew Gregory, Terayon Communication Corporation; Ed Ludka, Director, Advertising Systems Planning and Support, AT&T Media Services; and Mike Garmon, Manager of Technical Operations, Cox CableRep-Advertising, Orange County, California.
2. Securing the HFC Network, moderated by Oscar Marcia, DOCSIS Chief Security Architect, CableLabs. Speakers included: Eric Rosenfeld, Security Architect, PacketCable, CableLabs; Jim Fahrny, Senior Security Architect, CableLabs; and Nancy Davoust, Consultant, YAS Broadband Ventures LLC.
3. MetaData Carriage, moderated by Joe Weber, Senior Technologist, CableLabs. Speakers: Paul Glist, Partner, Cole, Raywid & Braverman; Bill Warga, Director Digital Video Technology, AT&T Broadband; and Jeffrey Krauss, Consultant to CableLabs.

The conference concluded with another wave of three concurrent sessions:

1. Management: Common Provisioning for Video, Voice, and Data, moderated by executive Consultant Yassini. Speakers were: Fellows of AT&T; John Hildebrand, Vice President of Multimedia Technology at Cox Communications; and George Hart of Rogers Cable.
2. IP Backbone Migration: ISP Transition Plan, moderated by Doug Jones, Chief Architect of YAS Broadband Ventures LLC. Speakers included: Luisa Murcia, Vice President, Technology, Advanced Services Group, AT&T Broadband; Herb Shirey, Vice President, Residential Data, Adelphia Communications; and Jay Rolls, Vice President Data Engineering, Cox Communications.
3. Bandwidth Management: What We Have, What We Need, moderated by Terry Shaw, Director of Network Systems for CableLabs. Speakers: Mike Giobbi, Vice President, New Technologies, Armstrong Holdings; Cheryl Persinger, Member of Technical Staff, Management Science Applications Group, AT&T Broadband Labs; and John Fountain, Director, Broadband Engineering, Cox Communications.

The conference also included about 25 demonstrations from the following companies: Alticast, Arris, Go2BroadbandSM, Cisco Systems, DIVA, Gallery IP Telephony, Gist Communications/nCube, Harmonic, ICTV, Imedia Semiconductor, Intel, Liberate, Linksys, Motive Communications, Motorola Broadband Communications Sector, NDS Americas, OpenTV, P-Cube, Samsung Electronics and Samsung Telecommunications America, SMC Networks, SONICblue, Sonus Networks, Stargus, Tollbridge Technologies, and VIXS Systems.